lessons about wheel bearings
Well, my Honda Civic 2003 has been noisy since I got it, a year or two ago. Just cabin loudness. I figured it was the road noise that early Civics were well known about. Sounded like road noise. Just a roaring that curiously started at around 20mph. Not correlated with engine RPMs, so I knew it wasn't engine noise. No steering issues or noise correlated with cornering.
So I had it in the shop for other things, and was told that my left front wheel bearing was defunct. Now, I had lazily tested the wheel bearings on the right side (hey, they degrade in pairs, right?), and those were fine. I just didn't want to jack up the other side.
The wheel bearing was replaced and OH MY, the cabin noise is GONE. Just gone. I am quite amazed.
The lessons here being that you should test ALL wheel bearings (yeah, that was stupid of me), and that what sounds like loud road noise can actually be a wheel bearing. I'm lucky I kept my left front wheel on when I was highway driving!
